Sun and Fun at Harvard Beach

It's May and spring has still only deigned to drop in on Cambridge a few times. But even those brief visits were enough to give hope to those of us who had begun to believe that non-radiator warmth and the color green were cruel myths invented by unkind Floridians to torture blue-blooded Harvardians. The University pundits accuse students of library-mania, Lamont-lunacy and Widener-warbling, but clearly they have failed to take the weather into account. Student behavior is quite sensible given the fact that undergraduates awake most mornings to grey, white, brown, wind and cold outside, and 90-degree, sultry, sweaty climes inside electric blue, yellow and orange rooms.

Student schizophrenia is really rationality in disguise. Why are students so diligent sometimes and irresponsible other times? Why do January demonstrations get into The Crimson and spring ones make The New York Times? What accounts for grade slippage in the second semester? Why are libraries and dining halls the social hot spots of the University throughout most of the year? The weather, of course.

For proof of thermometer power, just wander down by the Charles River. Try February 3 first. It's a desolate, Siberian sight if ever there was one. But then, for purposes of comparison, take another walk on one of the few thong-sandal April afternoons. You will see literally dozens, perhaps even hundreds of students ardently trying to live up to the image the outsiders have stuck them with. They are there with stacks of books, pen and paper, lecture notes. Some even go so far as to come fully attired, as if to punish themselves for wandering from the hallowed halls of academe. But most slyly tuck away the accouterments of the experienced sunbather--sunglasses, cocoa butter, iodine, baby oil or Sea 'n Ski (depending on skin type), towels, pillows, harmonicas, frisbees, blankets, congo drums (?!). All of this is hidden in bags and purses under layers of the Puritan ethic in the shape of school work. Take, for example, a young woman who dutifully begins reading Samuelson or Campbell or Marx or whoever--but reaching the end of the page she realizes that the words have slid over her eyes like soft-boiled eggs on a white plastic plate. She begins again with renewed fervor and determination. And once more, the glint of sunlight on the river, the bouncing body that jogs by, the red girl playing a congo drum with Mao plastered on its side, the frisbee that nearly breaks her nose, distract her already wavering concentration.

And so, reluctantly, the student takes the first step towards Decadency, Degeneracy, Perdition. She quietly unties her Adidas and proceeds to peel off her shoes, socks and sweaters, revealing her unhealthy, banana-colored skin. Having bravely ventured this far, she risks a glance at the other guilty ones. To her astonishment, Harvard beach is littered with uninhabited tennis shoes, crewneck sweaters and T-shirts--even with unread textbooks and blank paper passively but menacingly there. It appears people will do anything to feel the warm caress of the sun on their creepy, winter-whitened, fish-belly flesh. On her right, a young man who had been complaining about his work, hoping to impress the girl next to him with brilliant talent for procrastination, has actually begun to play a harmonica and toss a frisbee simultaneously--the college student's Dylan imitation. And the red girl--my God, she begins to thump her drum as if moved by some invisible rhythm, her foot tapping, her head dipping, swaying, thrusting.

As the afternoon progresses and classes end more students flock to the river, and Harvard beach looks more and more like Fort Lauderdale on College Weekend. And the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, from wonk to human being, has commenced.